"That it cannot break time and time's greed---that is the will's loneliest misery." Thus spoke Zarathustra. To try to escape…
A Secular Age

This discussion of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age is the first discussion on The Immanent Frame. You might want to begin by reading the first essay by Robert Bellah here.
The discussion hosted below expanded to include critical conversation about the edited volume Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age, edited by Michael Warner, Jonathan VanAntwerpen, and Craig Calhoun, in 2010.
For a sub-thread regarding “Sex in a Secular Age” click here.
For background on the founding of The Immanent Frame and the decision to host sustained dialogue on “the secular,” read Jonathan VanAntwerpen’s “Introducing The Immanent Frame” here.
Heraclitean spirituality: divine conflict
From the vertiginous summit of his virtue, and against all evidence to the contrary, Heraclitus informs us that "it is…
Akbar Ganji in conversation with Charles Taylor
Charles Taylor: If the human relation to religion and to God is not as shallow as the mainstream theory thinks,…
Discerning the religious spirit of secular states in Asia
In his monumental book, A Secular Age, Charles Taylor distinguishes three meanings of secularism, as it refers to the "North Atlantic…
Embedded religion in Asia
The secularity of modern Asian states has by no means led to widespread social secularity, Taylor's second secularity, a decline…
Hybrid consciousness or purified religion
Charles Taylor's framework for understanding the advent of a "secular age" in the North Atlantic world offers a useful first…
The fanatical counterpublic
How are we to understand Taylor's own position between disengagement and "fanaticism"? Of course, he doesn't want to side with…
Multi-religious denominationalism and American identity
Charles Taylor has argued that those of us living in North America and Europe are witnessing a shift in our…
Higher times in the Bible Belt
Rich in interdisciplinary breadth, Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age offers an opportunity to reflect on the reception of…
What Taylor misses
The heft of a book would seem proportional to its exhaustiveness. It is no surprise that Charles Taylor's A Secular…